CHARLOTTE – Jeff Van Gundy was talking about the Knicks “teetering” on the brink before last night’s game with the hapless Hornets. No need to worry about that anymore. They’ve gone completely over the cliff.

On a night Van Gundy asked his team for their help in a pre-game meeting, they responded by falling flat on their face, crushed 106-82 by the 13-20 Hornets at the Charlotte Coliseum. So much for floating Van Gundy a life preserver.

This defeat marked one of the team’s most disappointing road losses in the last decade and it dropped the 18-17 Knicks into 10th place behind the Sixers and Cavs and out of the playoff picture with 15 games to go.

“I told Jeff that I let him down,” said Larry Johnson, who was so upset, he almost appeared near tears.

As Johnson came off the floor with 7:19 to go, he told his coach those words. “We’ve let him down, we’ve let ourselves down, no question,” Johnson explained. “And you know what the real frustrating thing, earlier in the year we were losing games because of a turnover or some other reason, but now we have meetings and we talk and now I don’t have the faintest idea why this happened tonight … We’re slipping backwards.”

Off the cliff.

The Hornets shot a season-high 58.1 percent as they registered their biggest margin of victory ever over the Knicks.

The Knicks never led and trailed by as much as 29 as five Hornets scored in double figures, led by guard David Wesley’s 24. Knick guards missed their first 11 shots of the night.

Before the game, Van Gundy pleaded with his team to get their act together. It was nearly four weeks and a home game against Charlotte ago when Van Gundy’s job security was first being questioned. “I told them this is my responsibility and I also need their help putting more into it,” Van Gundy said of the Knicks plight.

Despite those words, the Knicks trailed 29-12 after one quarter. “The first quarter was as bad as you can have it,” Van Gundy said. “Everybody was open and they kept making their shots.”

As for his own job evaluation, Van Gundy offered this: “I’m disappointed in myself and the team. It’s my responsibility to get them playing better and uh, I haven’t done my job well the last couple of weeks.”

The Knicks have lost seven of the last 10.

Asked if he felt he was losing his team, Van Gundy paused and said, “I don’t know … I don’t think I’m losing the core guys.”

Not to worry, though. Earlier in the day GM Ernie Grunfeld proclaimed Van Gundy’s job was safe and that he was in the team’s plans for next year. He made those comments on WFAN, adding that plans call for Van Gundy returning as coach next season.

Of course, those plans can change in a heartbeat and who knows if Grunfeld will return. Considering the show the Knicks put on last night, this is a franchise in deep trouble.

Van Gundy admitted before the game that it is a tough sell to get his players geared up for this stretch run. If the playoffs were to start today the Knicks would be on the outside looking in at the rest of the team’s trying to take Michael’s abandoned crown.

“Right now I have to re-sell them on the vision of what we can be,” Van Gundy admitted. “And that’s been a difficult sell … I was hoping we would come out stronger and more determined, but we just seemed to be lifeless at times.”

That in itself is dangerous territory for the Knicks. “We’re teetering, not just positioning-wise, but emotionally, mentally,” Van Gundy said. “There has to be change, either from individuals or myself making changes, we just can’t keep going on and on.”

Patrick Ewing, like Johnson, said the Knicks are a mess. Asked if they are letting down their coach, Ewing, who has said he wants to be traded if Van Gundy is fired, noted, “We’re letting ourselves down. We’re not getting the job done. We all came into the season with high expectations and we’re not living up to them.”